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Halloween is a celebration from the Anglo-Celtic Islands celebrated on the evening of October 31st, Halloween. His name is a contraction of the English All Hallows Eve which means the eve of All Saints 'Day in contemporary English and can be translated as "All Saints' Wake". Despite its Christian and English origins, the vast majority of sources...

Halloween is a celebration from the Anglo-Celtic Islands celebrated on the evening of October 31st, Halloween. His name is a contraction of the English All Hallows Eve which means the eve of All Saints 'Day in contemporary English and can be translated as "All Saints' Wake". Despite its Christian and English origins, the vast majority of sources present Halloween as a legacy of the pagan festival of Samain which was celebrated on the same date by the Celts and constituted for them a sort of New Year's Day celebration. Halloween is thus known to the present day under the name of Oíche Shamhna in Gaelic. It is a very popular celebration in Ireland, Scotland and Wales where there are many historical testimonies of its existence. Jack-o-lantern, the emblematic Halloween lantern, is itself the result of an Irish legend. It was from the VIIIth century, under the Popes Gregory III (731-741) and Gregory IV (827-844), that the Catholic Church introduced All Saints' Day on November 1, operating a syncretism with the festivals of Samain. Some scholars, however, consider the festivities of "Eve of All Saints" as exclusively to be connected with the Christian tradition and deny any pagan origin to these celebrations. Halloween is introduced in North America after the massive arrival of Irish and Scottish emigrants in particular following the Great Famine in Ireland (1845-1851). It gained popularity there from the 1920s. And it is on the new continent that Jack-O'-lantern lanterns made from pumpkins of local origin appear, replacing the rutabagas used in Europe. Halloween is celebrated today mainly in Ireland, Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The most famous modern tradition is that children dress up in frightful costumes (ghosts, witches, monsters, vampires, for example) and go to the doorbells, asking adults, often themselves disguised, for sweets, fruit Or money with the formula: Trick or treat! ("Stuffing or Tasty!") Or simply "Happy Halloween! ". Other activities include masked balls, viewing horror movies, visiting "haunted" houses or lighting bonfires outdoors.